Canon C100 Gets Continuous Autofocus in New Firmware Update

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The Canon C100 has been one of the quieter successes in the Canon lineup -- even though it's not as flashy as the C300 and more expensive than most DSLRs. That hasn't stopped many professionals from singing its praises, and getting one as an affordable personal camera. Now it's acquiring some consumer-oriented features in a new firmware update that may just come in handy: continuous autofocus and continuous auto iris.

OK I downloaded it and installed it on the C100 just before the camera left our building and did some very quick tests using the 18-135mm STM lens. The AF in Focus Lock mode was very fast and smooth. Much better than before.

AF in Continuous mode (which is accessible as a setting in the camera menu) is fully continuous which means it keeps focusing without any interaction.

The One Shot (focus lock) AF mode still requires you to push the Focus button on the front of the camera body.

In my initial test, I was very impressed with the speed and smoothness of the Continuous Focusing. It was very good in very low light, and would probably be even better in good light. It seemed to track a moving person diagonally very well, which is not easy for most contrast detection systems.

It's unlikely you'll need to call upon this in a professional environment (or if you'd even want to), but I can think of one situation where it could work really well as long as performance is good: steadicam. No, not with a professional operator, but if you don't have much of a budget and you've got a handheld model like a Glidecam or Merlin, (or even one of those new-fangled gyro-stabilizers), and this works as advertised, it could make your life much easier when trying to follow a subject and also keep said subject in focus. That's obviously not the recommended way to do things, but if it works, why not?

Another situation where it might be helpful is if you need behind the scenes material for something, and you don't have any experienced operators available, I imagine this function could probably get some decent footage.

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I've updated my C100 as well and tested with my 18-135 STM. What's interesting is that it starts to auto focus very slowly, or even not at all after f8.0. However, t's very fast and accurate at f3.5-5.6. The auto-iris feature is very impressive, with results mirroring a lens with a clickless aperture.

I think both features will definitely get used in a professional environment. Won't be critical, but will be handy.

Auto iris -- definitely useful for dealing with changing light situations, for instance following someone from outside a church to inside.

Auto focus -- useful, for instance, if you have a locked off camera on a speaker at a conference who sways or shifts body position. Or, for that matter, on a dancer moving around a floor. A good operator will have their eye to the camera, sure, and pull focus. But maybe auto makes it a little bit easier.

And as Joe mentioned -- what if you hand the camera to someone inexperienced, which does happen from time to time? There's plenty of situations where there isn't the budget for a second operator, but the coverage from a second camera is very useful. Autofocus means one option is to bring in half an operator, in the shape of a friend whose skills are limited to pushing the red button.

Another thing worth mentioning -- guys who are solo event shooters often manage multiple cameras simultaneously. This means there's often times when you walk away from the camera to go check something else.

So far they have the firmware set to only work with the zoom STM lens (40mm didn't work for me). My guess is because of the STM has quiet autofocus where as you would get annoying clicks on non STM. Will probably be added in the future.

Though with this update they should just include the 18-135mm in the C100 kit rather than the 24-105. Not as good of a lens but the autofocus would be more of a selling point.

The lens on the camera was 18-55mm STM. I shot the video using iPhone but goes to show the function works. If I ever have time I might film and upload footage from the c100 with the lenses but don't really see the point. The function works and the quality of those lenses are already documented by others.

I also find it interesting that only two lenses have this special IS. This could mean we will see more lenses with STM added to them. That sure would be great for C100 users shooting handheld a lot. 24-105 with STM. Yummy!

I am very pleased that canon is taking auto focusing in their professional cameras very seriously. Because it's that important and make life easier. As mentioned here, guys who use steadicam will know how valuable autofocus is. Now, they should put that 70D Dual Pixel CMOS AF in Canon C200 :)

I'm a steadicam operator and autofocus is stupid and pointless for steadicam.

For an unmanned 2nd camera...maybe it's a good idea, but for most things, autofocus is terrible. Does it find a subject and lock onto it? Does it center weight the subject, meaning any off center framing will leave the subject out of focus? How does it find the subject? A touch screen? A button that you hold for a moment? If either of these things, how would you do that while simultaneously holding a steady frame? Do you do it with an assistant doing that. If so, have that assistant doing focus like normal! Autofocus (and steadicam) only really works with something with a tiny sensor and big depths of field like a gopro or iPhone.

How about option for automatic off? In quick shoots where we need to run from one location to another, sometimes I tend to forget that the camera is on and end up draining my battery. If my cheap DLSRs have auto off why can't my C100 have it too?

I have a question about pairing this firmware update with the 18-135 STM lens versus the $500 Dual Pixel Autofocus upgrade. I would imagine that having all three elements (new firmware, STM lens, and dual-pixel upgrade) would be ideal but if one were to simply buy the dual-pixel autofocus upgrade and use, for example, a classic EF 24-105mm, would I have the same auto-focus capacity as someone with a 18-135mm STM lens and the firmware update? If I stuck with my 24-105mm I would miss out on the auto-iris ability offered by the 18-135mm STM, but as far as auto-focusing goes, could I just buy the dual-pixel upgrade and save the $550 that I would be spending on the 18-135 STM lens?

Also, below some folks are saying that the 40mm pancake does not work with firmware update.

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